svxr8dr

iTrader: (1)

Anyone heard about this? I think something big is coming down with the 9/11 commision and the media.

lojasmo

Turns out the U.S. government knew that three of the hijackers presented a ready threat to the U.S. and didn't alert law enforcement.

Of course, since bush had the "Al-qaeda will attack new york with airplanes" memo just a month before 9-11 it's doubtful that anything will come of this.

svxr8dr

iTrader: (1)

Your "Al-qaeda will attack new york with airplanes" is full of utter crap it's not worth rational people to address.

Able Danger:
The gist (courtesy of The National Review)

The Sept. 11 commission will investigate a claim that U.S. defense intelligence officials identified ringleader Mohammed Atta and three other hijackers as a likely part of an al-Qaida cell more than a year before the hijackings but didn't forward the information to law enforcement.

Rep. Curt Weldon, R-Pa. and vice chairman of the House Armed Services and Homeland Security committees, said Tuesday the men were identified in 1999 by a classified military intelligence unit known as "Able Danger." If true, that's an earlier link to al-Qaida than any previously disclosed intelligence about Atta.

Sept. 11 commission co-chairman Lee Hamilton said Tuesday that Weldon's information, which the congressman said came from multiple intelligence sources, warrants a review. He said he hoped the panel could issue a statement on its findings by the end of the week.

"The 9/11 commission did not learn of any U.S. government knowledge prior to 9/11 of surveillance of Mohammed Atta or of his cell," said Hamilton, a former Democratic congressman from Indiana. "Had we learned of it obviously it would've been a major focus of our investigation." ...

According to Weldon, Able Danger identified Atta, Marwan al-Shehhi, Khalid al-Mihdar and Nawaf al-Hazmi as members of a cell the unit code-named "Brooklyn" because of some loose connections to New York City.

Weldon said that in September 2000 Able Danger recommended that its information on the hijackers be given to the FBI "so they could bring that cell in and take out the terrorists." However, Weldon said Pentagon lawyers rejected the recommendation because they said Atta and the others were in the country legally so information on them could not be shared with law enforcement.

Here's the fun part. The AP apparently confirmed at least part of this stunning information.

Defense Department documents shown to an Associated Press reporter Tuesday said the Able Danger team was set up in 1999 to identify potential al-Qaida operatives for U.S. Special Operations Command. At some point, information provided to the team by the Army's Information Dominance Center pointed to a possible al-Qaida cell in Brooklyn, the documents said.

However, because of concerns about pursuing information on "U.S. persons" — a legal term that includes U.S. citizens as well as foreigners admitted to the country for permanent residence — Special Operations Command did not provide the Army information to the FBI. It is unclear whether the Army provided the information to anyone else.

The command instead turned its focus to overseas threats.

The documents provided no information on whether the team identified anyone connected to the Sept. 11 attack.

If the team did identify Atta and the others, it's unclear why the information wasn't forwarded. The prohibition against sharing intelligence on "U.S. persons" should not have applied since they were in the country on visas — they did not have permanent resident status.


If this checks out, it's going to have a lot of repercussions. Clear-thinking folk will have to seriously reexamine 9/11 commission's work and conclusions. Missing a key fact like this is inexcusible. Most fascinatingly, it appears Commission staffers were told of Able Danger and what it found, but never passed this information on to the commissioners themselves. Why???

svxr8dr

iTrader: (1)

Somebody's lyin.

If this checks out, a lot of folks left, right and center are going to have to ask hard questions about what the heck Jamie Gorelick was doing on that Commission instead of answering questions to it. The whole, "well, both administrations were to blame, let's move on" conventional wisdom regarding 9/11 could be shot to hell, if it turns out the U.S. military intelligence had these guys identified and located within NYC and an effort to capture them was vetoed. Over a legal argument that seems flat-out wrong. Atta wasn't a U.S. citizen; none of these guys were.

The Sandy Berger stuffing his socks has always looked like a deliberate coverup, but now that slap on the wrist sentence he recieved looks truly outrageous. And the defense of him from President Clinton — something along the lines of, "oh, that's just absent-minded Sandy, we always laughed about him walking off with papers" becomes supremely implausible. No, if Weldon's account is accurate, this entire thing smells of a stunningly brazen coverup.

By the way, the blogs are buzzing about Slate's dismissal of the story, stating, "Weldon has a reputation for relying on iffy sources" and calls him "a congressman known to make wildly dubious claims." They say that right now it's the word of the 9/11 Commission vs. Weldon and one unnamed former military intelligence official.

I don't know. Weldon seems to indicate he's got multiple sources on this, according to the Times:

Weldon said in a telephone interview on Tuesday that he had spoken with three team members, all still working in the government, including two in the military, and that they were consistent in asserting that Mr. Atta's affiliation with a Qaeda terrorism cell in the United States was known in the Defense Department by mid-2000 and was not acted on.
This is in addition to the former intelligence official. Four government guys, and a document shown to the AP? I don't know if everything is exactly as Weldon says it, but there's clearly something here.

Salty

iTrader: (14)

So everything came to a halt because of PC bull**** if this is true?

Sounds like the potential of a few ruffled PC feathers scared brass out of more brass. But why? Certainly they wouldn't care. They're officers, not hippy babysitters. Could it have been that the Clinton admin shot it down because the subjects were in the US legally?

Am I right? I don’t understand exactly how the information was supposed to be relayed. Who dropped the ball where, svxr8dr? Those last two sentences threw me off.



Wow. This has the potential of being huge.

I've never been a conspiracy theorist but that whole Sandy Berger incident disappeared from the radar way too fast. So fast that it seemed like both administrations knew it would be a blow unless it disappeared. By that I mean a blow to the execute branch's reputation after Clinton's administration is completely thrown in the crapper.

Hahah. Hamilton pretty much admits that the 9/11 report may be inaccurate.

lojasmo

Well, I guess since you addressed it, you're not rational? No surprises. Here is the link, and some juicy quotes from the memo.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/americas/3616005.stm

The White House has made public an intelligence briefing warning of a threat from al-Qaeda, written a month before the 11 September terror attacks.

The commission investigating the 9/11 attacks had pressed for the Bush administration to make the memo public.

"Bin Laden since 1997 has wanted to conduct terrorist attacks in the US," said the memo, written in August 2001.


"FBI information ... indicates patterns of suspicious activity in this country consistent with preparations for hijackings or other types of attacks, including recent surveillance of federal buildings in New York,"

"Al-Qaeda members - including some who are US citizens - have resided in or travelled to the US for years, and the group apparently maintains a support structure that could aid attacks," it said.

svxr8dr

iTrader: (1)

Hijacking planes and using them as flippin V2 rockets I guess are only slightly different in your book

svxr8dr

iTrader: (1)

It's hard to find stuff about this right now, kinda like the Air America scandal


The New York Times broke some major news today, with a report that exposes for the first time the fact that the 9/11 Commission met with a military officer who provided information on a secret military operation called Able Danger that, by the summer of 2000, had used data-mining techniques to identify several of the 9/11 hijackers, including Mohammed Atta, as members of an Al Qaeda cell in the United States. Members of the Able Danger team sought permission to pass on the information to the FBI, but Pentagon lawyers told them they could not. The 9/11 Commission left this information out of its final report.

This is huge news that raises a lot of questions relating to the credibility of the 9/11 Commission, the culpability of Clinton-administration policies for 9/11, and the effectiveness of data-mining. A natural for the front page, right? Try A-14. Instead, the NY Times finds room on A-1 for stories about trans fats, wife-beatings in Africa, and the breaking story of how Beaver College changed its name to Arcadia University four years ago.

svxr8dr

iTrader: (1)

the military identified this ringleading ghoul as a terrorist up to no good, knew generally where he was, and recommended that he be arrested an entire year before the attacks? I’m sorry, this new information is much bigger than the ten “missed opportunities” outlined on page 355 of the report. The “missed opportunities” they outlined mostly talked about putting names on watch lists – essentially, chances to have domestic agencies “watching” these guys. Able Danger’s recommendation sounds like it was about a takedown – either arrest ‘em or kill ‘em; either way, it would have rendered Atta and at least one other pilot, perhaps two or three inoperable. It would have been darn tough to pull off the use of jetliners as flying bombs with fewer pilots.

Second development as this story progresses. I know Rep. Curt Weldon has a new book out. I know he’s a big fan of data-mining. I know he’s made comments in the past that seem a little more speculative than warranted.

But his story so far checks out at least partially, and it’s pointing to, at the very least, 9/11 Commission staff not passing on pretty darn important information to the Commissioners themselves. If not a much bigger cover-up of just how much the “Gorelick wall” made fighting terrorism impossible, and how Gorelick’s presence on the Commission was an inexplicably gargantuan conflict of interest.

I’m not saying Weldon’s always been right about everything he’s ever said – but even a broken clock is right twice a day, and Weldon may just have picked the Wonka ticket in the Disturbing Revelation of the Year lottery.

svxr8dr

iTrader: (1)

Looks like Pentagon lawyers dropeed the ball at this point, I think it's to early tell, somebody definitely fumbled though.

svxr8dr

iTrader: (1)

http://www.chronwatch.com/content/co...180&catcode=13

The information was gathered, according to a Reuters’ news article by “a small classified military operation engaged in data-mining analysis of ‘open source’ information.” Called “Able Danger,” its members sought to pass this information along to the FBI (including photographs and dossiers detailing links to al-Queda) with a recommendation that the FBI shut the cell down. They were turned down—either by attorneys in the Department of Defense or at the White House—on the grounds that the members of the suspected cell were in the United States under valid visas and because Mohammed Atta himself possessed a “green card.” Given that “Able Danger” was in possession of this information a year prior to the 9/11 attacks, it should be noted that said attorneys would have been under the auspices of the Clinton, not the Bush, White House, and very likely heavily influenced by the atmosphere that produced the Gorelick directive.

[Sarcasm on] who would have thought Gorelick would have a had a conflict on interest[Sarcasm off]

svxr8dr

iTrader: (1)

In the days before September 11, the Gorelick wall specifically impeded the investigation into Zacarias Moussaoui, Khalid al-Midhar and Nawaf al-Hazmi. After the FBI arrested Moussaoui, agents became suspicious of his interest in commercial aircraft and sought approval for a criminal warrant to search his computer. The warrant was rejected because FBI officials feared breaching the wall.

Recall, too, that during the time of Ms. Gorelick's 1995 memo, the issue causing the most tension between the Reno-Gorelick Justice Department and Director Freeh's FBI was not counterterrorism but widely reported allegations of contributions to the Clinton-Gore campaign from foreign sources, involving the likes of John Huang and Charlie Trie. Mr. Trie later told investigators that between 1994 and 1996 he raised some $1.2 million, much of it from foreign sources, whose identities were hidden by straw donors.

It's common knowledge the Gorelick was bucking for the USAG spot if Kerry won. It's also well know that Jamie Gorelick, was reportedly installed in her post at the insistence of then-first lady Hillary Clinton. ]

Yet this woman ends up on the 9/11 commision??!?!? WTH!!



Connect the dots anyone?

SilverScoober02

I get it now! It was all Clinton's fault! OMG Thanks I would have never guessed.

It was a different time then. We felt fairly invincible on our own soil so unless someone presented clear hard evidence that stuff was going to happen information was not shared. Crappy as it may be. You can bet your *** that now if something like this arose then the FBI would know.

Remember guys....Hindsight is always 20/20

Clearly there were many major mis-steps involved with 9/11 on all sides of the political spectrum. To try to paint one party or person as more responsible that another seems counter-productive. We need to worry about making sure things will happen differently should the same situations arise down the road.

SilverScoober02

Weldon is looking to get the Chairman of the House Armed Services Commitee job. That along with his new book coming out about his personal struggle to combat the Iranian terrorism threat despite the alleged resistance of the CIA makes me think this is little more than Weldon stumping for a job and good book sales.

I find it "strange" that the only other source of this information is an anonymous source who met only in Weldon's office (Of course!) Also "strange" is that absolutely no one in 'the know' on the 9/11 Commission confirmed the information that Weldon and his intel buddy are selling.

I'd like to see someone other than "anonymous" back up Weldon before I make any more judgements

svxr8dr

iTrader: (1)

So you are ok with Gorelick being on the commision? Even though she wants the AG job if Hillary wins?